


so you say you want a deathbed scene

by elliott



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Bisexual Garroth Ro'Meave, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Infidelity, Extended Metaphors, Gay Aaron Lycan, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Relationship Study, Repression, Season/Series 05, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliott/pseuds/elliott
Summary: Aaron’s father gave him the photo album during the year after he got stabbed, as if to prove that they’ve had the potential to be a family again this entire time, but it’s so pathetic that it really just makes Aaron doubt that they ever were a family in the first place. They’re not even smiling in most of the pictures, just scowling, like a werewolf version of American Gothic. It only took Aaron two minutes to flip through, and he didn't open it after that. He lingered on the photo of him and Garroth as kids the longest, though. He used to be afraid that Garroth was the only person who would ever be able to understand him.(After the events of part 2 of the Starlight finale, Aaron reflects on his relationship with Garroth.)
Relationships: Garroth Ro'meave/Aaron Lycan, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	so you say you want a deathbed scene

**Author's Note:**

> "So you say you want a deathbed scene, the knowledge that comes before knowledge, and you want it dirty. And no one can ever figure out what you want, and you won't tell them, and you realize the one person in the world who loves you isn't the one you thought it would be, and you don't trust him to love you in a way you would enjoy."  
> \- A Primer For The Small Weird Loves, Richard Siken
> 
> i spent almost the entire time writing this listening to poor little rich boy by regina spektor on repeat, and this fic took a very long time to write. there wasn't a good line from that song to make the title so it's a dick siken poem. this fic is dedicated to everyone who has ever commented "what about aarmau :/" on my garron art
> 
> warning for the standard aaron/garroth centric stuff: child abuse/experimentation, self-hatred, unhealthy relationships, etc. plus references to the aarmau pdh age gap and some internalized homophobia of the denial variety. sex is discussed, but no one has it, because they are losers. there is no "actual" cheating in this fic and therefore there is no physical resolution to aaron and garroth's relationship. this fic is "canon compliant" in the sense that it is a combination of canon events and events that jess never said DIDN'T happen between those events off screen. what i'm saying here is that this entire fic is canon

The moments between Aaron arriving on the boardwalk and Garroth hitting the ground feels like a blur. After he sees Ein the only thing he can feel is blind rage, and now, in the hours afterwards, all he can feel is guilt. All his life he’d resisted turning people, and now with two on one vacation? And that assumes Garroth will live through the process, anyways. He’s never felt like more of a failure. He’s choked up just thinking about it.

Even as Garte had thrown the blame onto Aaron, Garroth had insisted it wasn’t his fault, blamed himself, even. Aaron knows that’s wrong. No matter what Garroth or Aphmau say, he’s the one that did this to Garroth. He doesn’t know when he stopped dismissing Derek’s claims of him being a monster and started believing it himself, but he thinks now that he’s just been trying to trick himself and everyone around him. That this is really all he is.

Garroth isn’t as much of an idiot as everyone thinks he is, sure, he knew the repercussions of looking an Ultima werewolf in the eyes, but he had only done it to try to help Aaron. Who would he be to expect anything from Garroth except for a knee-jerk, selfless reaction?

As it all dies down, Garroth left alone writhing in the bed, a part of their makeshift hospital set-up, bones rapidly breaking and reforming, all Aaron can do is sit around, just wondering where it went wrong. Wondering how they got here.

He had found a picture of them together in the only photo album his parents kept, abandoned halfway through and not containing any pictures of him past age 10. They’re young enough that he probably wouldn’t even recognize that it’s Garroth with him without his mother’s neat handwriting below it. _Aaron and Garroth._

Aaron’s father gave him the photo album during the year after he got stabbed, as if to prove that they’ve had the potential to be a family again this entire time, but it’s so pathetic that it just makes Aaron doubt that they ever were a family in the first place. They’re not even smiling in most of the pictures, just scowling, like a werewolf version of American Gothic. It only took Aaron two minutes to flip through, and he didn't open it after that. He lingered on the photo of him and Garroth as kids the longest, though. He used to be afraid that Garroth was the only person who would ever be able to understand him.

* * *

It all starts like this: Garroth is six years old, and his dad secretly drugged him with untested, experimental arcane medicine, and now he can beat all of the kids in his grade at arm wrestling. Aaron is eight, and he’s started eating chocolate and vomiting it up later when no one’s looking so people will think he’s normal, but ever since he manifested his powers, he’s not allowed around other kids anymore. 

The two of them are with their families at the Bunny Hill Lodge. Aaron is sitting by the fireplace and watching as Garroth and Katelyn play some kind of game. They’re looking at each other, and he’s looking at Garroth. He spends a lot of his time these days watching other kids as they play, staying quiet in the background, even more lately now that his father has made business partners with people who have kids around his age. Garroth, Zane, Vylad, Katelyn and Travis all seem nice enough, but he doesn’t ever attempt to befriend them. Another one of his dad’s new associates has a kid too, he thinks, but he doesn’t know their name. He hopes they come around one day.

He wishes that he could play with them as well, but he knows he can’t. He watches as they enjoy their time at the lodge, sledding and having snowball fights and drinking hot chocolate together, and he imagines himself over there with them, too. His father catches him staring sometimes. Mostly he’s indifferent, just ignoring Aaron as usual, but sometimes if Aaron gets too close to the others he’ll yell at him. Aaron hates that, so he tries to stay as distant as possible, peeking around corners and through windows, anywhere where it would be harder to catch his eyes.

He’s being selfish, anyway. It’s for the others’ safety, after all, and his father already gave him Alexander, who is a perfect dog and just about the best friend anybody could ask for.

“You’re a little too hard on the kid, Derek,” Aaron had overheard Garte saying once, which is ironic now, considering Garte’s opinion of him feels unable to get lower nowadays.

“I don’t tell you how to parent your children, now do I,” Derek replied coldly, and the conversation ended there. He hadn’t fought for him, but Aaron had been flattered nonetheless that Garte had stuck up for him. Garte had seemed like the perfect dad to him at the time, and why wouldn’t he? Without any knowledge of his complicity in experimentation on Garroth and only Derek to go off of, Garte simply spending time with his kids made him seem like the best dad in the entire world to Aaron. He’d always wished he could befriend the Ro’meave family. All of Garte’s children seemed nice, but secretly, Garroth was his favourite.

He’s the closest to his age, and he’s always smiling, carrying on like nothing can dampen his spirit. Aaron could use some of that optimism, these days. He wishes he could ask Garroth how he stays so upbeat.

Maybe, if he could talk to Garroth about all his problems, he would understand. He doesn’t feel like anyone gets him, these days, an almost early-onset feeling of teen angst born out of a combination of his parents’ continuous absence and the way other kids in his class have started jeering at him for sitting alone and never saying anything. Garroth has said a few things to him before, basic greetings, which Aaron had hastily exchanged before bolting. He feels bad, but he knows his dad will be livid if he catches him talking to anyone.

But Garroth is just like him, isn’t he? The oldest son of a businessman who does the same work his father does. He’s expected to inherit the company, just like Aaron. Who could understand the pressure of growing up like that, if not Garroth?

The idea that Garroth would understand felt hopeful at the time. Now that he’s grown up, nothing is more isolating than the feeling that he is truly the only other person who would.

Aaron goes into his teenage years kicking and screaming, and his father is anything but sympathetic. Melissa is away more than ever at some all-girls boarding school for smart and/or filthy rich people, and his parents are away more than ever for work. Normally, he’d be thankful for that, but he’s mostly just lonely, now. He doesn’t know what happened, and he knows he can never ask, but he’s certain that something happened between his father and his business partners. Most of them he never sees again, and even though Garte is still around, he’s around less and less, and when he is, his interactions with Derek are decidedly hostile.

Aaron’s lacklustre attempts at petty rebellion get him sent away to a military school where everyone in his class hates him even more than they used to and all his teachers expect him to grow up to kill people someday. It all reminds him a lot of his dad, honestly, except the murder, this time would be state-sanctioned. Ha. He hates it there. Garroth goes off to some school called O’Khasis Prep, some fancy school for trust fund kids, and they don’t see each other for a long while. At the time, he thinks he’ll probably never see him again, and doesn’t think of it much after.

He recognizes he should be trying to get back into authority’s good graces, but being the best kid at a school for bad kids is just about the worst thing you can be, so he spends his time there injuring people and getting injured in return. A kid breaks his finger, so he breaks their whole arm. It heals wrong, leaving his finger crooked for the rest of time. He racks up a truly impressive collection of scars. He doesn’t have any friends, but what’s new?

He continues his hobby of watching anyone he can from a far enough distance that he can’t notice them. While listening in on the other kids in his homeroom class, he finds out they’re playing this game called Final Fantasy 11. He’s never played a video game before, but listening to them talk about it makes him want to give it a try. You can fight monsters, and do quests, and the 11 is even written out in roman numerals, like XI. It’s not a Nintendo or a Playstation game, or any other console his parents would never let him get, but one for computers. He has a laptop, even if it’s supposed to be for school, he could play it on that! It sounds so cool, and best of all, it’s online, meaning he could play with real people. Maybe if people don’t actually know him like they do in real life, then people will finally like him.

When he’s home for Thanksgiving break he asks his dad for it for his birthday next month, but he predictably just angrily asks him why what he does isn’t enough for him and throws a vase at him, which he narrowly dodges. The vase shatters on the ground, and probably cost thousands more than Final Fantasy ever would. It’s not a big deal, really, he doesn’t know what he was expecting. He hasn’t gotten a birthday present in a few years. Melissa comes in and yells at Derek for throwing something at Aaron. Derek yells back. Aaron quietly leaves and locks himself in his room upstairs.

To his surprise and delight, it turns out Aaron _does_ get a birthday present that year — Melissa, assumedly guilty over her generally passive stance in their father’s personal war against Aaron, buys him the game. Derek doesn’t even take it from him, just makes some vague threat about monitoring what he’s doing and walks away, not returning for a couple of days. Aaron gives Melissa a big hug and he even gets to eat three full meals that day, so he decides that this is probably the best day of his entire life.

It takes him a while to get a hang of the game, but eventually does, pouring hours and hours into the game and getting extremely invested in the universe’s mythos. He even meets someone else on there who begins messaging him, and he works up the courage to message them back. Slowly and tentatively, they build up a connection, and Aaron’s never felt luckier. Whoever Shu is, they seem too good to be true. Even if most of their interactions are tinged with the fear of the possibility that Derek could find out, Aaron is excited to finally be making his first, real friend — or at least an approximation of one.

His good luck doesn’t last for long, though, because a couple of months later Aaron breaks another student’s bone for the third time that year and has to leave the academy. Even though he hated it, he finds that he doesn’t want to leave. It became familiar, almost, the routine, and most of the students knew not to fuck with him at that point.

Phoenix Drop High is a dump, the kind of underfunded public school where all the teachers hate you because they’re underpaid and the roof is basically falling apart. Aaron figures it’ll be shut down not too long in the future, but until then, he’s stuck there.

Things go much different for him than he plans, though, for better or for worse. At the time he’d been convinced it was for the better, but he’s not sure about that now.

Aphmau — Shu, as he used to know her, _his fiancée_ as he knows her now — gets brought into his life for real this time, and with her, Garroth. He looks different, now, which foolishly surprises him. What was he expecting, for Garroth to be a little kid forever? Garroth is still going to O’Khasis Prep, because unlike Aaron he’s an upstanding member of society who does not get kicked out of schools for punching people in the face. He’s tall now, as tall as Aaron even though he’s two years younger, and equally ripped even with his cushy private school education and unbruised face. When Aaron sees Garroth again, his throat goes dry, which is actually because Aphmau’s also there. Obviously. He watches him from the distance quietly, for old time’s sake, and he wonders if he remembers him, too. He doesn’t ask.

Aaron has decided he’s in love with Aphmau, now, because he probably should be. He’s kind of a total dick to her at first, but she’s undeservingly patient with him and sits on the other side of the door to the music room and listens to him while he plays. He doesn’t miss how she looks at him, even if people seem to think he’s entirely unaware of everyone around him, and he figures reciprocating is the easiest course of action, ever the strategist. Minimizing conflict used to be his best talent before he became dedicated to causing it. They’re each other’s first kiss. They go to prom together.

It’s weird, because she’s kind of young and most of the time it feels like what he imagines having a sister would be like, but no one else seems to think it’s weird, so it must not be. His father’s told him how one day he’s going to be CEO and have a wife to “rule” alongside him, even tells him about how he “discovered” Rachel (and it’s always those words he uses, never anything else), so he should probably be happy that Aaron is already thinking of his future like this. He’d probably be furious that Aaron was even talking to her though, so he doesn’t bring it up. He will someday, when he finally has enough control over his powers, whenever that may be. His parents will come to their wedding and they’ll cry because they’re so happy for them, and everything will finally be okay.

Melissa notices, though. One day, when she’s home for break and they’re standing silently in the kitchen together, she tells him, “You’re acting differently.”

“Oh?” He replies, nervous that she’s on to him. He loves Melissa as a sister, not a confidant — she inherited Derek’s cutthroat instincts, and he’s pretty sure she’d rat him out if she thought it would increase her standing in their father’s eyes. Or maybe she didn’t inherit it, he thinks, and she just spends all of her time trying to emulate it. Either way.

“Yeah,” she confirms, after staring at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “You seem more… sad, lately.” He blinks in surprise. He was expecting _Aaron, you’re looking so happy lately. Aaron, you look exactly like the kind of person who has a secret girlfriend you are very in love with._

“I’m fine,” he says, and he’s not even sure if it’s the truth or a lie. He’s less sure of everything, these days. Melissa doesn’t seem to believe him, but the truth that he would have to offer would not endear their father to her anymore were she to figure it out, so she turns around to leave. Before she can, he calls after her, “Do you remember Garroth Ro’meave?”

She turns around, almost out of confusion. “...Yeah,” she says tentatively. “A bit. Why?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know why he asked, let alone what a good lie would be, so he doesn’t say anything. Melissa cocks her head to the side a bit, looking intrigued, and he assumes she’s about to start interrogating him, but another minute of silence just passes and she turns back around to leave. Oh well. It’s easier this way.

Eventually, he graduates, and it’s not exactly a momentous occasion. None of his family come to his graduation, not either of his parents, who claim they have impossibly vague “important business” to attend to, not his sister, who to her credit at least has something genuinely important to do and apologizes profusely, not his uncle that his father mentioned once and never again and yelled at Aaron for asking about, not any of his allegedly long-dead grandparents. He and Aphmau informally break up, deciding to stay friends while he goes away, not knowing when they’ll next see each other.

He goes to Falcon Claw University to study business because he has to, and his father holes him up in the broken-up top floor of one of the dorms all by himself. He doesn’t know if the floor was already under construction or his dad just set that up as an elaborate ruse, but he ends up nearly tripping over beams of wood more than once when trying to leave to go to class. He starts wearing a bandana to cover his eyes, the one Aphmau gave to him, as a reminder of… something. For comfort, maybe? He’s sure there’s a reason he chose to cover his eyes with that over anything else, but he can’t remember.

His father isn’t even hiding the fact he’s paying people to watch Aaron’s every movement, so he’s forced to accept it. They all dress in suits and ties and sunglasses and look like total assholes. He tries to talk to some of them sometimes, but it’s like he’s talking to himself with the way they ignore him. He’s half-convinced they’re just highly advanced robots, at this point.

Despite their dedication, he manages to sneak out a couple of times to keep tabs on how Phoenix Drop High and Aphmau are faring in his absence. He goes from naming Ein the alpha because he thinks it’ll make Aphmau happy to throw him out a window, which is all quite a lot, but at least he gets to see her again. Even if he wasn’t in love with her, like he is, he thinks he would still like her.

Inevitably, he gets caught, and Derek is furious, even though he’d just been there trying to help and had barely talked to anyone. Security on him is increased, and he gives up his hopes of seeing Aphmau that year.

In his third year at FC University, Garroth arrives.

When he sees him he does an almost violent double-take, but yep, it’s him. He’s at the campus coffee shop, sitting down with Katelyn and another woman he doesn’t recognize with pink hair. He flees the scene quickly, afraid to acknowledge his past, but after that, it seems like Garroth keeps coming across his path. He’s in the same dorm building as him, it turns out, on one of the floors that isn’t decrepit. He continues to try to ignore him, afraid to even look at him in case any of the agents catch him looking and just _know_ something is up.

He’s mostly successful, talking to Garroth only once the entire year. It’s by accident, of course, during a Tuesday night when he’s distracted and bumps into him walking back to the dorms.

“Oh, sorry,” he mumbles, looks up, and meets his eyes with a start. Logically, Garroth can’t see his eyes through his bandana, but he feels he’s looking right into them.

Garroth stares at him for a few seconds, but then his face lights up with a smile. “Hey! Aaron!”

“Hey,” Aaron says after a moment. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“Garroth,” Garroth says, as if Aaron doesn’t know exactly who he is.

“I know who you are.”

“Oh, cool,” Garroth says, pretty psyched at that idea, for some reason. As if knowing Aaron is a good thing.

“Mmm,” Aaron says, still at a loss for words.

“Nice bandana.”

“...Thanks,” Aaron replies, looking around as if an excuse to leave will materialize out of thin air. “Sorry, I have to… leave. Um. Sorry.”

“Hey man, it’s okay,” Garroth says, still smiling. How is he still smiling? “I’ve seen you around, we should hang out sometime before the summer break.”

“Sure,” Aaron says, and he bolts. 

They don’t.

In his fourth year at FC University, Aphmau arrives.

It’s what he’s been waiting for for years, but it all feels pretty anticlimactic. Security on him has lessened over time, so sneaking out to see her isn’t completely impossible like it would’ve once been. Derek is an obstruction as always, but most of his surveillance is remote nowadays. The science building is named after him due to how much money he threw at the school, and he barely ever goes there.

His fourth year is inarguably the most eventful yet — he gets a new girlfriend by accident (was the last one on purpose? He thinks it was), and some new friends along with it. Talking with Aphmau is nice, and because of it, he’s around Garroth more. They don’t discuss the last conversation they had, nor is the energy between them particularly awkward. He’s grateful for that. They don’t exchange many words outside of the day Aphmau almost drowns but hey, he’ll take what he can get.

He makes friends with Agent R, Derek hires a new agent that beats the shit out of him, he breaks up with his not-girlfriend Jenny, Derek fires both the new agent and Agent R. He doesn’t fire Xavier for beating him up, of course. That was a feature, not a bug.

Crazy conspiracy theorists aside, after months of having _friends_ , actual friends who make him feel like someone cares about him for the first time ever, he finally tells his father to fuck off and walks out. It’s the most terrifying and exciting and wonderful experience of his entire life so far.

Without his parents’ money, along with the fact he wasn’t allowed to have a job, he’s only able to get a shitty apartment in a run-down part of the city with the minimal amount of financial assistance he’d accepted from Agent R and Aphmau.

It’s a couple of years before he even sees Garroth again, or really anyone else for that matter. Before he and Aphmau get back in proper contact again, he hasn't exactly been spending much time making friends. He texts Aphmau sometimes, sure, but they don’t meet up more than once or twice. He’s too busy, and their schedules never seem to line up. He wonders about Garroth sometimes, contemplates asking Aphmau how he’s doing a few times, to ask for his number, even, but he quickly dismisses it.

Ever since he dropped out of university he hasn’t been doing much, just working various shitty jobs to be able to keep his even shittier apartment. When he’d worked construction he had spent some time around others, even gone out for drinks with his coworkers once or twice, but he’d still tried to keep his distance. He hadn’t had to worry about that during his night security job, where the only other employee he interacted with was the day shift guard he would exchange a nod with as they switched positions. The job was fairly dull, anyways, and lent itself to slacking off. Not that he was a Richard Abath or anything, but he’d spent more of his shifts distracted while reading than he’d prefer to admit to his boss.

He keeps wearing the bandana most of the time, even though it makes people look at him weirdly. It is pretty weird, but he hopes people will just dismiss it like _yeah, that’s Aaron Lycan, you know? He’s already weird._ It seems to be working for him so far. 

One day, he gets a call from Aphmau.

“Hey?” He says as he picks it up. It comes out as a question, but he didn’t really mean for it to.

“Hi!” Aphmau replies, cheerfully. “How are you?”

“I’m good, I—”

“That’s great! Can you help me move?”

Ah. That makes sense. Even if her delivery is a little rude, she obviously really needs some help. They talk for a bit longer, she explains that she hasn’t even told her friends she’s moving yet because she’s afraid they’ll be upset about them moving from the apartment complex to an actual house. He agrees, of course, because even throughout the years, Aphmau is his first and maybe still only friend (if he can even still call her that) and he has more free time than usual now after just being fired from one of his other jobs, working retail at a place he’d never enter under any other circumstances.

So he heads over to her place, helps her pack up some boxes, and they go to IHOP together. All in all, it’s a pretty good day. Garroth and his friend Laurance try to attack him with cats, but it doesn’t work, so he’s fine. A little bit perturbed, but fine nonetheless. People have done worse things to him.

Aphmau also takes him to Olive Garden a few days later with a few of her other friends, which is fun until Garroth and Laurance knock him out and steal most of his clothes. He has to leave the bathroom in his boxers and he gets kicked out for public indecency, along with the rest of the group, which is fair. It’s all kind of a mess.

Even though he and Garroth hadn’t talked in a while, their dynamic has been altered by the presence of Aphmau a lot more than he thought now that they’ve been broken up. He pretends not to notice the way Garroth looks at the two of them together, but he does. Just like he used to be afraid that Garroth was the only person who would ever be able to understand him, he used to be afraid that Garroth was in love with Aphmau. If only it was as easy as he had thought it was at the time. A simple love triangle like that he could’ve handled. Maybe then he could’ve felt like he won, rather than lost.

He avoids Garroth as best he can, which he’s used to doing by now, mostly opting to spend time with Aphmau rather than in the company of her friends, who are overwhelming, even if they _are_ nice to him most of the time. The house she moves into, with two of her other friends he vaguely remembers went to Phoenix Drop High and FC University, is pretty close to his apartment, so they’ll run into each other when she walks her dog, Celestia, and walk the rest of the length together. She tells him about all the anime she’s watching, how she’s befriending Garroth’s weird younger brother Zane, and how the new house is. Mostly, he just listens, nodding along and commenting very rarely. It’s a nice routine.

Aphmau’s house catches on fire briefly due to something Kawaii~Chan did, which she insists to Aaron is “not nearly as bad as it sounds,” which is good because it sounds pretty fucking bad to him. She gets a one day job at a maid cafe that she’s promptly laid off for because she gave her uniform to Zane instead, for a reason he doesn’t understand even though she tries to explain the debacle to him. 

Katelyn decides to put on a play, a “modernized” version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in which he is cast in the role of Romeo. Aphmau gets cast as Juliet, and she’s incredibly flustered over the fact they’ll have to kiss for it, but it doesn’t seem like a big deal to Aaron. They’ve kissed before, after all, and this isn’t even a _real_ kiss, just a fake one. Actors do that all the time. Garroth, with the help of Laurance, continues to attempt to sabotage Aaron constantly, but Aaron still doesn’t object, because all’s fair in love and war, even if he didn’t sign up for love _or_ war.

By the time A-Con rolls around and Aphmau and Aaron have entered a relationship again, Garroth chills out for the most part, which is nice because it was pretty much impossible to spend time with the guy when he was like that. Aaron never really had a version of Garroth to properly miss, but he missed his own perception of him, and he’s glad it’s still somewhat intact.

Aaron gets tickets for a beach resort called Love~Love Paradise with the help of Dante of all people, and all they have to share is the most awkward, totally straight, accidental kiss between bros to get them. It’s a month into him and Aphmau dating, and by that point, he’s accepted that he’s going to be the kind of person whose only friends are his girlfriend’s friends. There are worse things, he supposes, like going back to not having any friends, or worse yet, being forbidden from even talking to others.

He’s pretty sure that Garroth is still completely in love with his girlfriend, and maybe Laurance and Travis and Zane and Dante and everyone else is, too, but they don’t talk about it, because it’s just easier not to. He wonders if he’s the only one who ever has any problems with properly loving Aphmau. If so, why’d she pick him? He’s never felt like he earned it, still doesn’t, like he’s tricked her in some way. He used to be afraid of being caught deceiving, but now he’s afraid of how much of her life she’s wasted, spent with him.

He’s originally going to share a room at the resort with Aphmau, but Katelyn makes him sleep on the couch, which he goes along with because he wants to get along with them all and Katelyn’s lack of trust in him a consistent obstacle in that regard. He’s not quite sure why yet. Occam’s razor, it’s probably because Katelyn’s in love with Aphmau, too. It seems like more people are rather than aren’t these days.

Here’s the problem: the couch isn’t unoccupied, Garroth is sleeping on it too. Which, technically, is fine. It’s a pretty big pull-out couch, so two people can certainly fit on it with enough room between them, even if those two people are some pretty large dudes. They’re settled down for the night — sheets off because it’s significantly hotter here at night than it is in Washington and they’re getting used to it, sleeping at opposite ends of a pull-out couch together like two completely friendly bros — and _of course_ Garroth is one of those people who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and starts snoring loudly. Aaron is convinced he’s never going to fall asleep that night until he suddenly does, and until he wakes up _totally by accident_ with his head resting on Garroth’s shoulder with Garroth’s arm around him and Aphmau’s laughing at him. Not even him shoving Garroth off and his flustered deflections at Aphmau’s teasings can wake Garroth, who’s only awoken when Katelyn comes up and punches him in the stomach, effectively reminding Aaron to keep trying as hard to stay on her good side.

They reconnect with Teony and Ivy, and Garroth’s time is diverted away from Aaron and Aphmau and towards running away from Ivy. Aaron has never had a very good read on relationships, but the sheer emotion that seems to arise in Garroth at his name being pronounced “Groth” is pretty significant. Aaron and Garroth continue to sleep together on the pull-out couch, Aaron going half crazy at Garroth’s incessant mumbling in his sleep about how his name “ _is pronounced Garroth!”_ and making sure to waking up early to untangle himself from Garroth so no one sees them like that again. They seem to keep ending up in each other’s arms in their sleep. Aaron doesn’t want to admit that, even with the snoring, it’s some of the best he’s even slept in his entire life.

Katelyn’s dad shows up, along with Aphmau’s mom, who has always kind of terrified Aaron. He’s never great with authority figures, but ones that display open hostility towards him are another level of bad. Eventually, they tell her that they’re in a relationship, and even as he’s running away as she screams at him, he supposes it could’ve always gone worse. She didn’t have anything to throw at him on hand, and he’s faster, so he’s left unscathed.

Aaron eventually admits to Aphmau what he and Dante did to get the tickets, and she just laughs it off, affirming his very secure perception in himself as a very normal and heterosexual man. He admires Aphmau’s ability to laugh these things off — him kissing Dante, him sleeping with Garroth. Even if they were both accidents, he can’t get them out of his mind, as hard as he tries. He decides to try harder.

Their time at Love~Love Paradise, as enjoyable as it was, eventually ends, and they’re back in Washington, looking for a new house. Garte ends up setting them up in some neighbourhood Ro’meave Industries is “developing,” which Aaron figures is probably code for gentrifying. Even so, he’s a little jealous that Garte actually gives his sons money and attention, but he shrugs it off (and maybe just _son,_ really, because he’s never thought Garte cared for Zane all that much, and Vylad is never around anymore, if Garte even sees him as his kid). He could get money from his dad if he wanted, he just doesn’t want to be in debt to him, or anywhere near him again, ever. That’s normal, probably.

He and Aphmau are now living together, which is a big step up from their past, casual habit of occasional nights together. They have the whole house to themselves, and after spending so many years shacked up in dilapidated dorm rooms and his cramped apartment it seems a bit excessive for him. Aphmau’s totally freaking out about the idea of them sharing the same room, let alone the same bed, which he doesn’t really get, but he tries to continue playing the understanding boyfriend. It makes him think of the Romeo and Juliet performance. It feels so long ago, now, and he guesses that’s because it was. He tries to remember when the last time Katelyn talked about theatre was, and he can’t. He remembers at one point that had been her dream, something she wanted to do with the rest of her life. It’s like she doesn’t even care about it anymore. They are all moving on.

Aaron gets a lot closer to Lucinda who is cool and funny and also pretty mean and almost definitely never pays her taxes, but that doesn’t matter to him because he spent his entire childhood around people who were mean and didn’t pay their taxes. Lucinda’s not mean to him, at least. He’s pretty sure that’s what friendship is supposed to be like.

When he’s not at Aphmau’s house (his house, too, he reminds himself) or reluctantly getting into various antics with the rest of the group, he spends most of his time at Lucinda’s house, either reading or watching something in silence and occasionally talking. When they do, it’s good conversation. Neither of them has a whole lot to say, though, and he likes that.

They’ve been back for a couple of weeks when he realizes that he hasn’t been talking with Garroth all that much. He’s not sure why the thought makes him so sad, really, but Lucinda notices anyways.

“What’s bothering you?” Her tone is more nosy than caring, but he doesn’t really mind. That’s just Lucinda, he’s used to her by now.

“My relationship with Garroth,” he says honestly.

She raises an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”

“When I slept with him…,” he tells her, trailing off as he tries to figure out how to articulate his concerns, but realizes instantly by the way she gasps, scandalized and a little too excited, that he said that totally wrong.

“Shut _up!_ How? When? Was Aphmau there?”

“No! Irene, I— I meant like, _actually_ , when we slept in the same bed, at Love~Love Paradise.” His face is on fire. “Platonically, as friends,” he tacks onto the end, as if that helps.

“Oh,” she says, sounding considerably less excited. He should probably be offended over some aspect of this conversation, but he‘s too tired. “I remember that. And this matters because…?”

Why _does_ it matter? He can’t figure out why it all bothered him so much. He settles on, “When I… slept with him, I was like, wow, _we’re close now, huh_ ? And I’ve never had any close, like, _guy_ friends, and I’m nervous about it. I wanna be friends with Garroth, but I don’t know how to. And while that was happening we were _close_ , and now it’s like… I don’t know. We haven’t really talked much. I don’t want to leave it at the resort.”

“So don’t,” Lucinda says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world, waving her hand dismissively. “You seem to be doing pretty fine if you’re at the bro-cuddling stage already. Just keep up what you’re doing. That’s a high-level friendship right there.” She pauses, stares right into his eyes, burning red on gray. “If that’s all you want.”

“Of course,” he says, and it comes out pathetically hollow.

The thing is, he would never cheat on Aphmau. Even if he didn’t know Aphmau’s transparently obvious baggage from her dad cheating on her mom, he’s not that kind of guy. It’s not like he could break up with her, either. So this is his life now. This is settling — this is moving in with your high school girlfriend and getting married and passing down your killer genes to two wonderful, murderous children. He should want this, shouldn’t he? A wife, some dogs, some kids. Those are things normal people want, and he’s spent so long trying to be normal, isn’t admitting to not wanting those things just admitting defeat?

They had almost had sex during prom night when Aphmau was feeling brave after drinking the Shadow Knights’ spiked punch and they were holed up in the band room, just the two of him. She’d asked him if he wanted to touch her breasts and he blurted out _no_ and she got embarrassed and they stopped. He said later they’d do it eventually, but the time’s never come. Aphmau has given up trying to initiate. Eventually, he’ll want it, right? 

He’s almost thirty-one and he’s never had sex. That’s bad, isn’t it? He’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be bad, or pathetic, but the idea of it makes him sick. He figures that it’s the idea of sex itself that makes him sick, even though he only dares to consider the possibility of it in relation to Aphmau, because if she was the cause of it, repulsion is certainly no basis for a relationship. He doesn’t think about it more than that.

If all goes to plan, he’ll propose to Aphmau within the year, and they’ll get married, and it’ll all be worked out somehow. He figures it’s probably that simple, and he really shouldn’t be worrying about it all.

After his conversation with Lucinda, Aaron makes an effort to spend more time around Garroth. It’s a little bit awkward at first, but eventually whatever the barrier between Aaron and Garroth fades away and their relationship slides into a comfortable normality, just like it always does. Aaron starts hanging out with Garroth more often again, sometimes but not always with Laurance there, as well. 

Aaron had wondered in the past if Garroth and Laurance were dating, but had eventually figured out that no, they were just like that. Close male friendships verging on blatant homoeroticism had always been hard for Aaron to understand. It’s not like he’d ever had anyone near close enough to form a bond that comfortable, except maybe… Well. Garroth, obviously.

They’re sitting on his couch together one day, not paying attention to the made for TV movie currently playing, when Aaron opens up, just a little.

“It’s weird, I dunno, I just thought my life would be turning out a lot differently than this,” Aaron says. 

Garroth nods. “Yeah. You know, I used to have this boyfriend that—” and he slips that in there, so casually and abruptly, that Aaron doesn’t even have the time to pretend he isn’t surprised. He sputters, coughing, and Garroth’s lips quirk upwards slightly. “Ah.”

“Oh,” Aaron tries to sound casual but fails miserably. “You’re…” 

“Bi,” Garroth clarifies. Pauses, re-clarifies, “Bisexual.”

“Yeah. Cool,” Aaron says, adds on frantically, “I mean, I’m fine with that.”

“Of course,” Garroth says, kind of smug with how much he rattled Aaron. Bastard.

And Aaron is cool with it, of course. Why, then, does it feel so weird to him? He’s not homophobic, he’s never thought he was, anyways. Why would he be? It’s not like it’s that surprising, really, Garroth’s always been pretty… campy, he supposes? That’s part of what he likes about Garroth, he’s fun.

“Anyways,” Aaron says, pulling himself out of his thoughts. Collecting himself. “You had a boyfriend that…?”

“He believed everything happens for a reason. Like, we’re all on the intended path already, so no need to stress.” Garroth smiles properly, wide with teeth showing. Aaron never does that, he’s always too insecure about how crooked his teeth are. He barely went to the dentist growing up, he definitely was never given the opportunity to get braces.

“A lot of people say that,” Aaron responds.

“Yeah. Maybe they do,” Garroth says, smile unfaltering. “Maybe they’re right?”

Aaron’s pretty sure he remembers the Ro’meaves being Irene worshippers, and he wonders if Garroth still is. He’s not sure if he agrees with his statement, but it’s a nice thought.

“With all the business expectations, and just… Ugh,” Aaron makes a vague hand gesture. “Now I’m here. And it’s cool, but unexpected. I don’t know if that makes it _bad_ , it just feels wrong.”

“I understand,” Garroth says agreeably.

“Of course you do,” Aaron mumbles. “You’re the only one that does.”

Garroth returns his attention to the movie, and Aaron isn’t sure if he heard him, or he just doesn’t have anything to say to that.

And then the café happens. He supposes it makes sense Aphmau would want a job. After all, neither of them have a job at the moment, Aaron having quit his various other jobs one by one in the time before the move. Even if Garroth’s supplying their house, they need to buy groceries, pet food, clothes — basically, they need jobs. He considers crawling back to Lycan Industries after getting denied by two different jobs he applies for and getting ghosted by the third, but deep down he knows he could never do that to himself. He wouldn’t survive it, not in a way that matters.

So, Aphmau decides to open a café. The exact way it came about, he’s not really sure. Some joint venture between her and Zane, Kawaii~Chan too, maybe? Her face seems to be on the logos, done up in what seems to be a kind of Starbucks knock-off and/or respectful homage. They’re not even selling coffee. Even if he can’t tell her, others would be able to call Aphmau out for her complete lack of cooking skills, so he’s relieved when he finds out she’s not actually doing the cooking.

Sure, he’s nervous at first. The venture seems ambitious, but with Ro’meave money behind it, it’s not really any sort of financial failure he’s worried about. He just doesn’t want Aphmau’s feelings to get hurt if it crashes and burns.

He really doesn’t expect for it to go as bad as it does.

His family calls for the first time in years. He talks with his mother on the phone, tries to be as polite but clipped as possible, and she takes that as an invitation to call again and again. Something, something, the family business. Something, something, your father. It makes him feel like throwing his phone out the window. He doesn’t.

The doorbell rings. Aaron answers, and it’s Garroth.

“Hey, Garroth?” He can’t keep the question out of his voice. He wasn’t really expecting him to come over.

“Hey, Aaron!” As always, Garroth is smiling, even if he’s giving off a weird, nervous energy. “I wanted to talk to you, mind if I come in?”

“...Sure,” Aaron answers, however foreboding Garroth’s statement might come across as. He retreats into the house, Garroth following in and closing the door behind him. “What’s this all about?”

“My mom got a call from your parents,” Garroth admits. Exactly what Aaron didn’t want to hear.

“Wait, wait, wait. Is this about our family businesses?” He knows the answer already. Isn’t that what it always comes down to, in the end? “Garroth, I _really_ don’t want to talk about this today. I had enough of it yesterday.”

“I know,” Garroth says, and he at least has the decency to sound a bit ashamed. “But as the future CEO of the Ro’Meave Corporation—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aaron repeats. “ _You_ are taking over the company? I thought you didn’t want to!” He feels like his world is falling out from under him. Garroth has always been the one who _gets_ it, the other rejected heir. And now he’s losing that?

“I’m going to eventually…,” Garroth counters, but even he sounds unsure.

Aaron shakes his head in disbelief. “This does _not_ sound like the Garroth I know. Did something change your mind?” He’s grasping at straws for this to make sense. Something, anything. 

“Mmmm…,” Garroth sounds more unsure by the second. 

“Garroth?” Aaron demands, voice flat.

“Mmmmm, fine! Your parents called in a favour to my parents to get me to tell you that! Hopefully, it would inspire you to… go home?”

“Agh!” Aaron can’t help but cry out in frustration at that, feeling betrayed once again. “No! Garroth, I can’t believe you’d go along with their plan!”

“I’m sorry! But Mum asked, and I just couldn’t refuse.”

Aaron lets out a sigh of frustration, thinking of Zianna, her overdramatics, her ability to turn tears on and off like a tap, and Garroth’s perpetual weakness to it. “Garroth, ugh…”

Garroth frowns, looking upset. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“It’s… okay,” Aaron reassures, “It’s just… my family’s been trying to get back into my life these past few months, and I _know_ it’s not for good reasons.”

“I think I understand. I didn’t mean to interfere with your personal matters.”

“It’s okay,” Aaron repeats. Irene, it feels like that’s what this conversation is devolving into. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Back and forth and back and forth. “I… I know our parents are going to be in a partnership again soon. So I guess I understand why they felt comfortable asking you.” And really, he does. If his mother loved him half as much as Zianna loves Garroth, he doesn’t think he’d have a very hard time doing whatever she asked too.

Melissa comes back into his life and has the audacity to tell him Aphmau’s cheating on him with Zane of all people. Of course he doesn’t believe her. But even though it’s not from him, his relationship with Aphmau begins to strain. His head’s caught up in memories of his family, and with her throwing herself into the café, he has no one to talk to about it. It feels like he’s being left in the dust, like his life is falling slipping out of his control, and he doesn’t know what to do.

And then he runs into Garroth. Well, “runs into” isn’t really the right phrase. Garroth crosses the street to come see him. Aaron’s bringing a cheesecake home, some kind of offering to mend his and Aphmau’s fractured relationship. Garroth points it out, of course. He’s smiling so genuinely, Aaron can’t help but return it, even just a little.

“You okay?” Garroth asks him. “You look… different.” It catches him off guard. Aaron tries to remember the last time Garroth has seemed aware of anyone’s emotional state. He would feel flattered if he wasn’t annoyed he’ll have to lie his way out of this.

“How?”

“I dunno,” Garroth says, suddenly sounding a bit more uncertain. “Like you’re… tired, from working out? Exhausted? Uh, maybe like you’ve lost your spunk, or something?”

“Gee, thanks,” Aaron deadpans. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation.

“Eh! Um, I’m sorry,” Garroth replies, somewhat embarrassed but not actually sounding all too sorry. “Oh, man, this whole thing with Aphmau and Zane must have _really_ gotten you into the dumps, huh?”

Aaron can’t help it, he snaps. “Would everyone _please_ stop bringing that up?!”

“Ah! I’m sorry!” To his credit, Garroth does actually sound apologetic this time. 

Aaron sighs, feeling bad himself for getting angry at Garroth like that. “It’s… okay… I’ve just got a _lot_ going on.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No, I don’t,” Aaron replies immediately. “The idea of it is just… ugh.” He sighs again. “Nevermind.” Their entire conversation feels like it’s spinning in circles, but he’s not sure if he wants it to stop. With Aphmau ignoring him, it’s the most he’s talked to someone he knows in a while.

“Well, okay,” Garroth relents, and begins to walk away, but Aaron calls out before he can.

“Hey, Garroth.”

Garroth turns around. “Yeah?”

“You and your family,” Aaron begins, grasping at a way to properly word his question. “How… do you guys… be a family?”

“What?

“Your mom is always around, and you guys seem so close. Yet, you’re in the same situation as me, where you have a company that does the same thing. How does it work?”

“Hmmm,” Garroth responds, taking what sounds like a genuinely thoughtful pause. “I never thought about that,” He admits. “I guess it’s because even though they were always busy, Mum and Dad were always there. They worked very well together. Dad would help us when we needed, and Mum did too. But Mum made cakes, so she was secretly my favourite.” Garroth lets out a laugh at that, and Aaron can’t help but chuckle along with him. He doesn’t know if he’s lying about his parents working well together, or Garroth really thinks they do. Maybe it doesn’t matter. As long as Garroth can live with his own impression of events happily.

“That’s nice,” Aaron says. His smile has returned, just a little.

“Ha, but that last part was a joke, really,” Garroth amends. “I mean, we have our quarrels and everything, but…” Garroth trails off, as the implications of this conversation seem to finally sink in for him. “Are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Aaron lies. “Don’t worry. I was just wondering how other families were.” He tries to laugh a little, but it sounds fake.

“Well, all right then,” Garroth replies, even if it doesn’t sound like he really believes him. “I need to head home and try out this hair potion.”

Aaron doesn’t know what that entails, doesn’t figure it out by the time Garroth’s crossed back to the other side of the street, can’t stop himself from calling out after him, “But your hair looks great already!”

Garroth beams at him. “Doesn’t do that on its own, you know!”

As Garroth turns back around and disappears into the distance, Aaron can’t help but sigh again. _That guy._ He doesn’t know why he’s feeling this way. He thinks maybe he’s been this way too long to stop it.

To say his conversation with Aphmau goes badly when he gets home would imply they had a proper conversation at all. He’s sitting at home by himself, wallowing in his own poorly repressed memories of his mother saying all the things that Aphmau just did, and he wants to pretend that means they’re both right but he just can’t.

He doesn’t know why, couldn’t answer if you asked him, but he calls Garroth. He doesn’t say anything when he picks up. They sit in silence for a moment. It’s the most comfortable silence he’s sat in in a long while.

“Aaron?” Garroth asks. Aaron knows why he knows it’s him — the caller ID — but for a second he can sit there and pretend Garroth knows him so intimately he can understand his breathing from the other side of the phone line.

“Garroth,” Aaron says. “Everything’s— It’s going wrong.”

“What?” Garroth exclaims. He sounds really worried. “Do you need me to come over? Where’s Aphmau? Did something happen?”

“No, no,” Aaron says, hurriedly. “She’s upstairs it’s— it’s just me.”

“What happened?” Garroth asks, so softly. “Does it have to do with our conversation from earlier?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron says honestly. “I just…” He trails off. “Me and Aphmau, there’s something… wrong. Between us.” They’re both silent for a long moment.

“There was a time when I would be happy for you guys to break up,” Garroth says, a little sheepish. It says a lot about how far they’ve come that he sounds embarrassed about it.

“Was?” Aaron responds, chuckling a bit. He doesn’t know if it’s very funny, though.

“Was,” Garroth confirms. “Aphmau’s my friend, and you make her happy. And… you’re my friend too, Aaron. You should be a part of that relationship if it’s making you happy.” Pause. “Is it?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron mumbles into the phone. “I just don’t know.”

When he finally falls asleep, hangs up on Garroth and crawls into the bed where Aphmau’s already asleep, he has a nightmare where he proposes to Aphmau and she says yes. The wedding goes perfectly and they spend the rest of their lives together. It scares the fuck out of him.

When he wakes up, he goes to work, goes to the bank, the cafe catches on fire, and he and Aphmau break up. All of this happens before 8 am. It’s an eventful day, to say the least.

He ends up back with his parents, and he’s _miserable._

He thinks about how he could go find Garroth, but mostly he thinks about how much he misses Aphmau. How much he needs her. He feels like it doesn’t matter if Garroth is the only person who would ever be able to understand him, anymore. Aphmau is the only person who will ever have him, and that’s what actually matters. Garroth won’t have him because he won’t have Garroth, because he has Aphmau. He doesn’t care if that’s overcomplicated, he just accepts it. It’s how things are. They always have been and always will be that way.

Inevitably, he ends back up with Aphmau. He finds out his mom stole his phone, gets it back, and feels stupid for being so easily manipulated once again. For the first time in a few days, destiny grips him once again. When he was young, he thought that was to work for Lycan Corporation, take over as CEO, but he knows now that he was wrong. That his purpose is to be with Aphmau. He doesn’t know if that’s reassuring or stifling.

His parents won’t be in his life anymore, and that’s all that matters.

Less than a month later, he opens the door, and his father’s there. He’s rendered completely silent. Aphmau passed out for some reason, but he didn’t hear why over the ringing in his ears.

That night, he makes up three different excuses for her by himself in the dark, and even though they contradict each other he decides he accepts all of them. Really, he shouldn’t have told her anything about his family, simply let them remain anonymous and uninvolved. It’s tacky of him to unload trauma like that onto a romantic partner, someone who’s depending on him. Of course she would want them to patch up their relationship, invite them over for Christmas. He resolves to never do that to her again.

That night, he thinks again of his childhood. Of his time behind windows staring out at Garroth. In the dark of night, despite the laughable tin-can-and-string communication Garroth set up by his bed, he calls him.

He talks first this time, when Garroth picks up. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Garroth responds. “It’s late.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aaron says, embarrassed. It is. “Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Garroth says. “What’s up?”

“I had… a question.”

“Shoot.”

“When do you… remember meeting me?”

“Huh? Oh,” Garroth thinks for a second. “When we were teenagers, I think. Sometime when you had come back to PDH.”

“What?”

Garroth continues. “My dad said one of his old business partners’ children had come back from military school. I saw you with Aphmau, she told me about you.”

Aaron is speechless. He grips his phone tightly. Neither of them say anything.

“...Aaron? Are you okay?”

“Thank you, thank you,” Aaron mutters. “I— I have to go, okay?”

Before Garroth can say anything, he hangs up, and buries his head in his hands. With no knowledge of forever potions or child experimentation, the memory loss that came with it, he lays down in bed — with Aphmau, just he feels so alone — and tries to figure out if it’s better if he’s really that forgettable or if he’s lost his fucking mind.

After Christmas passes, and Valentine’s Day approaches, he makes up his mind: he’s going to propose to Aphmau. He doesn’t have any money, though, and he has no idea how to get a job that pays well enough to give her what he deserves. He’ll get her a nice ring, propose to her at Starlight Wonderland, just like she’d always dreamed of. So now he needs a job.

It’s only with Garroth there that he feels brave enough to talk to his dad. Together, they get an assignment to clean up Bunny Hill Lodge. Each of them gets to pick someone to bring with them. Aaron chooses Lucinda, and Garroth chooses Kim. Aphmau and Zane will be coming along later, but for now, Aaron actually likes it just being the four of them.

They fall asleep in their sleeping bags and Garroth tries to cuddle up with him like Lucinda and Kim are doing, but Aaron refuses because those two are obviously flirting and that’s definitely not his relationship with Garroth, even if he secretly totally wants to, in what is probably a normal and platonic bro way. 

He doesn’t know how it goes wrong so fast.

All of a sudden Garroth is watching as Aphmau stabs Aaron in the stomach. Garroth, who pried open steel beams just to come up to try to save him. Aaron will be touched when he learns of that later, but for now he’s just falling, hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

He closes his eyes and he sees memories he doesn’t want to, figures made of light he’s sure aren’t real. When he gets back up, removes the knife, a plan solidifies in his head: he has to find Garroth.

He does. He’s back in the lodge, pacing and freaking out and assuming the worst. Aaron walks in and he looks like he’s seen a ghost, which Aaron knows because he now has a reference point for what Garroth looks like in that situation. Garroth is in near tears, yet he’s still the one trying to comfort him. He’s never seen Garroth look so worried.

“I’m _fine,_ ” he manages out, clutching at sides to stop any blood from leaking through his bandages.

“No, you’re _not,_ ” Garroth pleads. “How are you even _alive?_ I saw what Aph did to you…” It hits Aaron in that moment, what Garroth thinks happened.

“That wasn’t Aph,” Aaron insists. “She would never do that!”

“Aaron…”

“Aphmau was the first friend I ever had! She was the first person to speak to me with compassion. She saw me for more than I was. And more than I’ll ever be. She saved me, back then. From feeling forgotten.” Even through the bandana, Aaron can see Garroth’s sad, blue eyes. Like they’re saying, _I could be that person for you, too. I’ll be so good to you, I promise._

Together, the two set out to stop Ein, gathering the help of the Ghost, Kim and Lucinda.

He gives Garroth the potion for Zane, knowing that with only two emeralds and three potions, freeing Aphmau means she’ll hate him forever. A sense of calm washes over him amidst all his distress: he can still save her, make sure she’s happy, even without him.

He finds her and sees the bruise and _snaps._ Once he’s limping back from the fight, Ein being torn apart by Tatiana’s wolves behind him, he gives up. Aphmau lunges at him, knife in hand, and he just stands there.

His blood is stark against the snow. And, for the second time today, he just drops.

When he wakes up, his parents are there. For a second, he thinks he’s died and he’s in hell.

One day during his year in recovery, he notices his mother’s purse on a table with a white envelope sticking out of it. Curiosity gets the best of him and he gingerly removes it, revealing an ‘AARON’ written on the front. He untucks the top flap and opens the letter.

“ _Dear Aaron,_

_Hi!!! It’s Garroth! How are you? I hope you’re doing good. I hope this gets to you. Dad had to go through hell trying to get this to your dad haha. Anyways, I hope your recovery is going well! I keep saying “I hope” oops. I KNOW it is! After all you’ve been through, I know you’re going to be okay. We’re all cheering for you!_

_From, Garroth”_

There’s a smiley face doodled at the bottom, and something before the ‘from’ is scratched out.

He tucks the letter back into the envelope, putting that back into his mom’s purse, and walks away. She never gives it to him, and he never asks about it, because it’d become real if he said anything about it out loud.

When he reunites with Aphmau, all of his friends are watching from the distance, out of sight, not catching their eyes. All of them cry, except for Garroth. There is no reason for this. He just doesn’t.

It’s the best day of Aaron’s life, probably. Why wouldn’t it be? They’re finally here together, at Starlight Wonderland, and he’s going to propose to her. He’s got it all figured out at last.

At the island, him and Garroth pass each other. Stand next to each other. They don’t exchange many words, because Aaron doesn’t have much to say. He thinks of a lot of things to say. They have so much to talk about. But he doesn’t say any of it, because he doesn’t want it to be real.

This is probably the worst decision he’s ever made, but in a few months, he’ll be standing on a boardwalk and disagreeing with that thought. She’s so convincing, the way nothing else is. She doesn’t even have a good reason. He just does it, because she tells him too.

That night, after the bite, they hold each other, and all he can ask is, “Why?” He’s not even angry, just confused.

She’s quiet for a long moment, finally tells him, “I didn’t want you to go through this all alone.”

Aaron doesn’t even know what “this all” means. He thinks back to the café. He doesn’t know why he thinks of it now, but he realizes Aphmau hasn’t mentioned the cafe even once. They are all moving on. He wants to laugh at how fucking ironic it is, but suddenly, nothing seems very funny to him anymore.

Aphmau spends her next days in excruciating pain as her bones rearrange themselves, and then he proposes to her. She says yes. Obviously. It feels like they’re doing Shakespeare again, that this is all just acting. It’s predictable, at this point. Played out.

They are both the happiest they’ve ever been. This is bliss. This is the best day of his miserable fucking life. The tears are from happiness.

Later, Aaron and Garroth are playing volleyball against Travis and Zane on the beach, and even if it’s not one-on-one, it’s nice to spend some time with him. They’re in the lead, obviously.

“We won!” Garroth declares gleefully as Aaron scores the final point.

“Suck it!”

“Aaron!”

Aaron flushes at Garroth’s scandalized tone. “Sorry, I get a little competitive…”

“Nah, you’re right, they do suck!”

Travis and Zane are complaining at each other across the net, but it doesn’t matter to Aaron when Garroth’s smiling at him like that. He can’t help but smile back. This dissipates when two women lingering around the game come over to hit on him, which obviously is unappealing to him because he’s taken, but in any other situation would not be a big deal and totally something he could handle.

Garroth tries to resolve the situation by hitting on them, and Aaron as Aaron attempts to wingman he can’t help but laugh at his repeated rejections, first by the two women and then by Nate as him and Guy show up. Garroth is indignant, but Aaron is pretty flattered by Nate calling him a 7, even as he becomes preoccupied with avoiding talking about his college experiences.

As they’re walking away, he tries to remember the last time Garroth’s been in a relationship. He doesn’t know if he can remember him ever being in one. He recalls the mystery man Garroth had a brief relationship. His charged but now seemingly non-existent relationship with Laurance. His highschool might-be-fling with Ivy, who Aaron was pretty sure was in it for the grift. He doesn’t even know if Garroth’s looked for a relationship in years. He hopes if he is, he finds one. He deserves it.

It’s in this moment Aaron realizes he should probably just ask him to be his best man already.

He knows he’d say yes. Even if one of his favourite things about Garroth is how he never quite knows exactly what he’ll do, he knows better than anything that Garroth would say yes. Much like marrying Aphmau, this is the obvious decision.

That night, after he resolves himself to talk to Garroth but before he can, Lucinda stops him.

“You’ve made a decision,” she says, unnecessarily cryptic.

“I’m getting married, yes,” Aaron reponds, raising an eyebrow.

“How long has that ring been sitting in your back pocket?”

“A while. I was waiting.”

“For what?”

“The right time,” he says, a bit resentful of the implication in her voice. “Obviously.”

“Back when we were at Love~Love Paradise, you told me you and Garroth slept in the same bed.”

“Yes,” he says carefully, unsure of where this is going.

“Aphmau told me you don’t put out.”

Aaron flinches, mostly at the way she phrases it. “I— You’re— You’re changing the subject.”

“No,” she says cryptically, “I think you are.”

“Lucinda,” he says, months, maybe even years of pent-up frustration buried in the word. “If you’re trying to say something, say it. I’m sick of your… games, whatever this is.”

“I love Aphmau,” she says. “I love you. And, despite my best interests, I love Garroth. But not the way you three love each other. And I think you three need to work on that.”

“It’s too late,” he mumbles, not even sure if he says it out loud. “Too fucking late.”

When he looks up, she’s gone. Or maybe she was never there in the first place.

He finds Garroth sitting by himself. Like he’s waiting just for Aaron. He’s not sure if he should allow himself the thought of that.

“Congrats on the engagement,” Garroth tells him. What a good sport. “Always knew you were going to tie the knot eventually.”

“Of course,” Aaron says.

“This…,” Garroth trails off, laughs a bit. Aaron does too. He’s not sure why. “Ha. I remember when you were planning this trip. You wanted to do something so nice for her.”

“I love her.” That’s why people get married, right?

“I know,” Garroth says agreeably. Pauses, before he says, “I do, too.”

It’s the only time they’ve ever acknowledged that. Now that it’s out there, it doesn’t feel as daunting as it used to, so Aaron pushes on, saying, “I mean— I love you, too.”

“Me too,” Garroth says, just nodding, like these are obvious facts. “Why bring it up?”

“Huh?” Aaron doesn’t know what he means.

“In comparison to Aphmau,” He says, raising an eyebrow. “Why bring it up?”

At some point, Garroth has taken a step closer, and now Garroth is close enough to see all the subtle scarring across his face. Below his right ear, across the bridge of his nose. Garroth sees it all, but he doesn’t say anything. After a moment of silence, Aaron says, “I don’t know.”

Garroth tilts his head, ever so slightly. He looks sympathetic. “I think you might, actually. I know.”

“Why, then?”

Garroth smiles. “Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you… to be my best man,” Aaron says.

“Of course I will,” Garroth responds without missing a beat. Smiles a little. “But that’s not the answer I was looking for.”

Aaron’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Garroth moves a little closer to him. “It’s not what I want you to say, it’s what you want to say.”

“I want to kiss you,” Aaron admits, voice strained, acutely aware of how close their lips are. He’s never been honest like this before, barely even though it, somehow convinced that speaking it into existence would cause him to fall dead at the very moment it left his lips. A few seconds pass, and he’s still standing. He supposes he was simply wrong.

“I do too,” Garroth responds, still smiling. Neither of them moves an inch.

“Well,” Aaron breathes, “Why don’t you?”

“You know why,” Garroth says, because he does. They both do. Aaron’s not sure if both of them are in love with Aphmau or in love with each other. Maybe both, maybe neither. He’s not sure of anything anymore, but he can’t move away. Garroth silent for a moment. Says, “If you want it so bad, you do it.”

It’s a stupid game of chicken, and Aaron can’t move his legs. He wishes he had the luxury of only being able to think of the two of them right now. That this could be their own little moment.

If Garroth wants to kiss him, Aaron wonders if Garroth wants to have sex with him, if he would want to have sex with Garroth. He feels increasingly tempted to find out, but he can’t. He thinks about justifying it to himself, that maybe if he was able to just have sex once it would be something he could finally give to Aphmau, but he _can’t._ He doesn’t want to have sex with Aphmau. He doesn’t want to marry her or date her or kiss her, but he does, because even if he doesn’t want those things he’s in love with her, and those are things that people are in love do with each other.

Lucinda had once told Aaron that Aphmau is selfish, half-jokingly, almost testing the waters. Even if he agreed, something he would never admit out loud, that just means he has to keep being selfless to counteract it. He can’t cheat on her and he can’t break up with her, so he just stands there. He wants to move forward and kiss Garroth, but he can’t move his legs, so they just stare into each other’s eyes. Wondering how they got here.

Aaron buries his head into Garroth’s shoulder, grabs the back of Garroth’s t-shirt into his hands, and he’s crying. Everything has fallen apart around him. How _did_ he get here? He used to be twenty-two years old and convinced he’d never have to see his parents or Garroth ever again, and now he’s lost everything. He’s sobbing into Garroth’s shoulder and he just can’t stop.

“I just—” he chokes between sobs. “I’m just afraid.” Of what, he doesn’t say, doesn’t know. But he’s terrified. It feels like seeing Ein at the lodge, it feels like opening the door to his father, it feels like the first time he looked at his eyes in the mirror and just saw red. Allowing himself this indulgence is the worst thing he’s ever done, but he’s so bad, he doesn’t even care anymore.

Garroth returns his hug, just tells him, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Aaron knows he’s lying.

“I don’t know what to tell her.”

“You don’t have to tell her anything,” Garroth says. Continues, just a little bit quieter, “But maybe you should?”

“I think I’m bad,” Aaron says. “I think— This wasn’t supposed to end up this way. I’m not playing my part right.”

“Fuck that,” Garroth says. Aaron lets out a surprised laugh through the tears. “We’re both bad, then. We can be bad together.”

“I’m really sorry,” Aaron says. He doesn’t say for what. For everything.

“Me too,” Garroth replies.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Neither do you,” Garroth mumbles. It might be the nicest thing he’s ever said. He’s heard people call Garroth stupid before, but he doesn’t know how that could be true when he’s here saying exactly what he wants to hear. “But I am sorry.”

“What for?”

“A lot of things. That time I played along with our parents to try to trick you. How I couldn’t stop Aphmau from getting to you at the lodge. How I’ve basically ruined your relationship.”

Aaron laughs at that, wet and hollow. “You didn’t do that. That’s totally my fault.”

“Maybe,” Garroth shrugs as much as he can from within the embrace, which isn’t much. “I wish I could help, though.”

“I just want you to hold me, right now,” Aaron says. And Garroth does.

Tomorrow Garroth will be lying in what could be his deathbed, and Aaron will have made a mistake that could be murder, but that hasn’t happened yet and the sun hasn’t set, so for now, they just hold each other. The story hasn’t ended.

Aaron wonders if somewhere out there there’s a universe where the two of them could’ve met in a different time, a different place, and maybe there neither of them would have to pretend. Maybe they could just stand there and kiss, and everything would be okay.

Probably not, though.

**Author's Note:**

> the four scenes specifically transcribed from episodes are from s3ep23 "gene's worry" s3ep24 "the break-up" s4ep15 "will you be here for me?" and s5ep32 "babes hit on aaron". too many canon scenes are referenced to list, but those are the ones where i wrote out the specific conversation they have
> 
> yell at me on tumblr [@ptsdaaron](https://ptsdaaron.tumblr.com/)


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